Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1887-04-21

HarperS.
lowish red hue, often covered with tobacco
juice as was the front of his brown do
| nestle shirt that fastened at the neck with
| large horn button, but left great gap
ing space Of eight or ten inches below, dis
playing his hairy breast. He wore pail
of brown-jean pants held up by one some
times two, 'gallouris' made of striped
bed-ticking, and in any thing like mile
weather had on neither coat nor vest Or
his head was the remnant of a coarse wool
hat, his pants invariably short, failed wher
he was sitting to meet the tops of his blue
wooden socks and the interval thus left
was uncovered by underwear; on his feet
summer and winter, were coarse brogan
shoes, IN size about number eleven.
In the eyes of Brown any man who wore
any thing finer than Kentucky jeans was
proud, and every woman stuck mp, who oil
Sundays, donned any thing save ''sun'
bonnet
Brown believed he was Just as good as any
body, but, fearing others would not think so
took occasion every now and then to assert
the fact.
he probably never missed meal Of
victuals in his life on account of Sickness
but when accosted with the usual "Howdy
do, Brown" invariably answered, ''only
toli6Ie." HIS family consisted of hearty
wife and some half-dozen healthy children,
but he never would concede their healthy
status, and when asked regarding their
health always answered with some quail
fed phrase as: "Purty peart considering y
sail stirrin' when l left;" ''so's to be
round" tall about now" ''only tolible
like" 'tall ai'rige but the old woman, she's
powerful weak" ''jist middlin'," etc, etc.
But once seated in your house ana hav-
ing satisfactorily compromised the health
of himself and family, Brown lost no fur
Their time, but at once began unloading his
latest batch of war news.
"Hain't heered bout the big fight on
the 'TeniSy,' recons That Gin'rl that hopc
(helped) the gunboats take them air forts
down thar, whar they ketched so many
sojers-Donels'n and Henery, b'lieve they
call 'em. fergit his name-O yes: Grant.
Well, he's got whipped mighty bad, him
and his army-got his'n all cut up and lots
of 'em took prisner.
'Some's sayin' they recon he must ben
IN ticker to git whipped that away
''They fit two whole days, and if it hadn't
ben for them air gunboats helpin', him and
his whole army ben tuck prisner, shore.
They are sayin': s'Pear5 like Grants aw-
full lucky gittin' hope from gunboats.'
"The first time he fit at place called
Bell sumthin' (Belmont), they got him out,
then they done most of the fghtin' at
Henery, and / reckon lots of it at Donels'n,
and this last time they saved his bacon,
shore. Pom my soul, b'lieve the South's
goin' to gain, though"
Not long after Shiloh Island No. 10, in
the Mississippi, with goodly number Of
prisoners surrendered to General Pope.
This in the West was at the time taken
as sort of Offset to our failure at Pitts
burg Landing, or Shiloh.
Early that spring the writer remembers
reading of the now world-renowned en-
gagement between the little National Mon
itor and the huge Confederate iron clad
Merrimac This engagement in Hampton
Roads revolutonized naval warfare and
forever done away with unarmored wooden
vessels.
The name Monitor which was afterwards
used in generic sense and applied to all
vessels built after the same general pat
tern of the one which so successfully en-
countered the Merrimac, at first sounded
strangely, but by and by became famil-
Tar enough.
The war, among other things, brought
into general use whole brood Of peculiar
and unfamiliar words.
The first word of this kind to attract at
tention was secession, corrupted by many
into SeceSh Coercion as applied to COM
polling the return Of seeded States was
another.
Contraband was first used by General
Butler when referring to slaves who had
come within his lines.
This was an unusually hard word at
first but soon became familiar when whole
clouds of contrabands (slaves) sought free
dom under the protection of our armies.
Refugee" applied to such white people as